The Christian faith is filled with many seeming
contradictions. Our Lord’s Passion not only teaches but instills and inculcates
in us this key truth. Yet it is a truth that we too quickly forget, and which
our lives too easily deny. But this truth alone is able to sustain us in our
darkest hours, when all hope seems lost, when faith seems pointless. Which is
why we must continually hear, and take to heart, the stories of the saints,
especially the martyrs.

Consider Saint Venantius, whom we commemorate today. At the
age of 15, because he confessed Christ, Venantius was scourged, imprisoned,
tortured with torches, dangled head-down over smoke to suffocate, beaten so
that both jaws were broken and he lost all his teeth, thrown into a dungpit and
then fed to the lions. All these things he suffered without complaint. During all
these afflictions holy Venantius was strengthened by angels. And his quiet
patience and longsuffering, his firm constancy and conviction, his meek
endurance and lack of complaint—this impressed all who saw and heard, so that
these gruesome tortures did not frighten, but rather fortified the faithful and
attracted the unknowing. When Venantius was finally beheaded, so were many new
Christians who desired the certain hope and the strong faith that he
evinced.

And so here is another seeming contradiction. Torture
reveals hope. Persecution attracts men not to bloodlust, but to believe. And
martyrdom does not weaken resolve or decrease numbers, but rather increases and
builds up the church.

This is true not only then, but even now. Even now, especially
in Syria, new Venantius’—teenage boys and girls—are boldly testifying to their
faith with their own blood. Martyrdom continues, and even now increases. And
those who kill and torture are thinking that they are destroying the Church.
But they don’t see the truth that we know. They don’t understand the seeming
contradictions that are the bedrock of our faith. And so they will not believe
that this is our finest hour. So even now in the arid lands of the Middle East,
these are the days when the Tree of Christ is being watered with the blood of
new martyrs, so that she may grow and flourish and feed our faith.

And so, another seeming contradiction—the gruesome scenes we
hardly hear about should not depress us, or scare us, or cause us to wring our
hands. These grisly martyrdoms ought to enliven our faith, and increase our
hope, and rejoice our hearts; even as they also concentrate our own minds so
that we more eagerly and more quickly “cast away all uncleanness and abundance
of naughtiness.” For how can we continue giving into our ungodly desires and
appetites, when we see the passion of these new martyrs? How can we not want
all the more to “put to death the deeds of our flesh,” when we hear of the death
of these new martyrs? And how can we think twice about giving our meager
sacrifices, when we see these new martyrs give all that they have and all that
they are for the love of Christ.

Spurred on by their merits, let us with increasing “meekness
receive the ingrafted word.” For in these new martyrs, that ingrafted word manifests
His grace to us. In them, the Spirit of truth is evident—the Spirit who builds
up his Church using such witnesses; and the Truth who reveals Himself so
clearly in these seeming contradictions.

What we hear in today’s news, what we see in Saint
Venantius—this is not new to us. It is simply the continuation of our Easter
joy—the joy where “death and life have contended in the combat stupendous,” so
that “the Prince of Life who died reigns immortal” so that we, who are not
bloodied nor bear any wounds, nevertheless win the victory.

So, as we hear these of these saints, let us not be
overwhelmed with sadness. And certainly let us not pity them. Rather, let us
remember yet another seeming contradiction: that such sadness ushers in
gladness; that those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. For while this kind of
“anger of man worketh not the justice of God,” it certainly does testify to our
hope and point to our salvation. And of this we can be supremely confident:
that such hatred will be defeated by love. For that is our faith—that Love
Himself is at work today, even as He was in His Passion, in ways we cannot
always see or understand; to whom, by the prayers of His holy martyrs, belongs
all glory, honor and worship, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.